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Canada Courts Issue Food Safety Violation Fines

By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

Judges in British Columbia and Manitoba closed a couple of cases involving the Canada's Food and Drug Act by imposing fines.
In Manitoba Provincial Court, the Honorable Judge Heinrichs fined Good Hope Colony Farmers Ltd. $500 for having frozen turkey carcasses in it possession for the purpose of sending or conveying the birds from one province to another for resale.
The Good Hope Colony entered a guilty plea last Oct. 4.
Good Hope was assisting another Manitoba Hutterite colony by sorting frozen turkey carcasses.  
According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the turkey carcasses were not fit for human consumption because they had been purchased as salvage from a highway accident in Alberta
It said Good Hope Colony Farms Ltd. helped to prepare the turkeys for shipment and they were sold and shipped to Ontario.
In BC's Vernon Provincial Court, the Honorable Judge Chapman fined Alfred Isaac $11,000.  He had previously plead guilty to:

• selling an unfrozen ready-to-eat salmon product that was required to be frozen for microbiological safety.

• not displaying a net quantity on a packaged product.

• misrepresenting a meat product produced in Alberta as coming from the Okanagan Valley.

• marketing an Alberta-sourced meat product in BC that was not from a federally registered plant.

• marketing in Alberta a quantity of BC apple juice which was not from a federally registered establishment

Isaac owns the Long Barn Food Co., near Armstrong, BC, a food marketing business.
He pleaded guilty last Oct. 27 to violating two counts of section 5(1) of the Food and Drugs Act, one count of section 4(1) of the Consumer Packaging and Labeling Act, one count of section 8 of the Meat Inspection Act, and one count of section 17(a) of the Canada Agriculture Products Act.
CFIA has primary responsibility for enforcing Canada's Food and Drugs Act, including the Consumer Products and Labeling Act, the Canadian Agricultural Products Act, and the Meat Inspection Act, and their assorted regulations. 

Full post as published by Food Safety News on March 25, 2011 (boomark / email).